He also said that the PSA Group, which makes the world famous Peugeot and Citroen cars, is looking to open an Asian research and development (R&D) centre. “That means if they bag Proton Malaysia, it would naturally benefit by being named PSA’s Asian R&D centre,” he said. “Proton requires know-how and funds for R&D programmes to compete with global car brands, locally and abroad, as it is still at the bottom of the ladder in homegrown automotive technology. “This is simply because the cost of R&D runs into billions of ringgit and Proton, on its own, cannot afford to go it alone,” he told Bernama. Just to recover the development cost of RM600mil – at roughly RM60,000 per unit, Proton would have to sell 10,000 Iriz cars, the source said.

Source: The Star February 26, 2017 21:56 UTC